Dane County Clerk Teams Up with “Chad Vader” for PSA on Election Security

MADISON, Wis. (WMDX) – The Dane County Clerk has teamed up with a production company to highlight election security measures, through a parody of Star Wars. 

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell and production house Blame Society partnered to create a public service announcement. It centers around the company’s parody character Chad Vader, Darth Vader’s younger brother. The clerk’s office has worked with Blame Society in previous years to produce videos about the election process. 

In the video, Chad Vader read online that a voting station was compromised, and goes there to “help”. There, he encounters McDonell, who explains the voting process, and election security measures. He details ballot tabulator testing, election staff chain of custody, and hand-counted audits after the election. 

McDonell said the goal is to show people how the process works, and do it in a funny way. He said he had been advised not to use humor when discussing election security. He decided doing something funny would reach more people, and when they’re trying to beat out misinformation, the more people they can reach, the better. 

“When we do things that are more interesting, humorous, we get much more attention,” McDonell said. “It’s important for us to try to figure out a way to cut through the noise, through the disinformation and misinformation. Clerks are really struggling with how to deal with that. The lies seem to go so fast around the world, people seem to believe them no matter what we do.”

The release of the video included Wood County Clerk Trent Miner, who’s the president of the Wisconsin County Clerks Association. He’s also a Republican, while McDonell is a Democrat. 

“We want the voters to know that regardless of political party, clerks have multiple layers of security in place to make certain that votes are safely and accurately counted,” Miner said in a statement. 

To watch the public service announcement for yourself, click here.